I think you mean '64 of the 67 seats up for election', right?

I think Ford is officially a longshot now.  His ill-advised gate-crashing stunt is clearly hurting him, the climate is relatively favorable for the GOP in TN (W's approval rating is actually in the 40s), and there is still the ugly undertone of racism.  The only thing that he has going for him is that at the top of the ticket is a Dem Gov that will win by 30% or more, but it's really starting to look no so good for him.

MT is getting closer, but I think Tester can pull this one out.  He seems like a real down-to-earth moderate kind of guy that can win in a red-compromised state.

NJ seems to be moving clearly towards Menendez, especially with the flap over some GOP PAC's anti-Italian racist commercial that was aired and then quickly pulled. Even though it didn't come from Kean, it's getting him a lot of bad press (even Curtis Sliwa was trashing the commercial as counter-productive today).

VA is one that has obviously been GOP-leaning all along, but that I really want to see Allen lose.  He's exactly the kind of guy that needs to be booted from Congress.  Webb has momentum and I'm still hopeful that he can close the deal, but I'm not too optimistic.  Both the pre-election polls and the exit polls in VA in 2004 were very skewed towards Democrats.

The real battleground is MO.  I'd have to give Talent a tiny edge if I had to bet on this, but I like Claire McCaskill and I think this one is a real dead heat.

With PA, RI, & OH in clear Democratic control, MT a fairly likely pickup, NJ safely defended, and considering Lieberman a Democrat, that puts the Senate at 49 or 50 depending on how McCaskill does.  While technically still in GOP control under Cheyney, it puts the Democratic party in a great position to take the Senate in 08 with so many vulnerable Republican seats up.  With the House most likely under Dem control already, it makes it even more critical to find the best Presidential candidate.

Border states?

These seats will be won on the ground. I live in MD, but there is no canvassing going on on Sunday, so I plan to go to VA to help Webb.  You can sign up on Webb's web site to phone from home, so you can do that no matter where you live, from what I have seen.  Give money, give time, work with Moveon.org, just get out there in some way to help these close Senate races.

I was really getting excited about MO when McCaskill was getting those favorable polls last week, but it's clear now the race is basically dead tied.  This isn't good considering all of Talent's money.  But McCaskill is a strong candidate.  She only lost to Blunt in 2004 by under 100,000 votes, which Kerry lost to Bush by about 200,000 in the state.  I hope the DSCC comes in strong for McCaskill in the final week.  Even if we come up 1 short of a majority every Senate seat counts.  1 Senator can be the difference between a successful fillibuster of a far right wing judge being appointed to the Supreme Court.  McCaskill will also be a reliable progressive voter in the Senate.

LA Times today has some positive news:

"In Virginia, Democrat Jim Webb led Republican Sen. George Allen, 47% to 44%."

Please go here and "see" what things are looking like.
http://electoral-vote.com/

We can all plainly see what three states need our help to win the senate!

The good thing.. I guess... is that the polls do not reflect 100% of the vote.  So where are the rest of the poll numbers going?

I may have spoke too soon about VA. I am not sure which polling outfit is involved but AZ could be getting close enough to be in play.

"Jim Webb is up over George Allen in Virginia (47-44), and Jim Pederson creeps into striking distance of Jon Kyl in Arizona (41-47)."  

http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank?pid=517 62

This may seem off topic, but I don't think it is.  With several key Senate races (and a larger number of House races) very close, I can't help but ask "what is being done by the Dems to insure that votes actually get counted properly?"

I know there's mixed views on how much cheating has happened and can happen with electronic voting and other problem areas, but I think it's fair to assume that Rove and his network of operatives will not forego ANY tool that can help the Republicans retain control of Congress.

To me, this raises the unfortunate question of whether the Dems (and the netroots) continue to build a better and better system for filling the electoral bucket with votes (a worthy and admirable effort), while largely neglecting the fact that the bucket has many holes in it, and that there are those with motive and apparent capacity to manipulate the results of key races to insure that Republicans retain control of at least one and (God forbid) both houses.

I may be (and hope I'm) wrong, but I don't see any concerted effort to insure the integrity of the vote, especially in key states and districts.  I also hope I'm wrong that this apparent deficiency will make a difference on Nov 7.

Longshot sounds like a virtual impossibility.  But 13 days is still a long time at the end of a campaign, and the GOP has been crumbling in multiple ways.  With Pederson finally moving up in Arizona, this campaign may have a few more surprises in store for us before the end.  We could still end up winning a 2-seat edge.

Now, 3 seats, that's a long shot.

Yeah this rule worked real well for Kerry in 2004....

I don't know enough to make really educated suggestions, but it seems like Dems should be mobilizing monitors in close races, both onsite and to "watch" the whole process at local and state levels.  Some would have tech expertise, some legal, some doing legwork, etc.  A web site could be set up (probably too late for that now, if not done already) to gather, disseminate info and coordinate efforts.  One small anecdotal piece of info suggesting lack of focused effort is that my father, a retired judge living in Florida, was invited by the local Dem organization in 04 to serve as part of a local election monitoring team (he was the "legal" expert on the team).  But he wasn't contacted at all this time around.

I always hear pundits talk about the "Two Virginia's," the Northern cities near Maryland and the southern more rural areas. For Webb to have a chance hes going to need a MASSIVE turnout from the northern cities.  Whats fustrating is that Allen still has a slight lead after uttering racial slurs.